Varsity faces flak from various language groups

The four-year undergraduate programme has now come under fire from several Indian language departments of the University of Delhi.

According to the new programme, 13 colleges under the university will offer Punjabi, Urdu and other Indian languages only as minor subjects from the second year. Earlier, students were allowed to choose these languages from the first year itself.

This decision has not gone down very well with several groups with president of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee Manjit Singh GK on Wednesday meeting representatives from various organizations and colleges. The gurudwara management committee president discussed at length the importance of modern Indian languages at the meeting, terming Delhi University's new rule as an injustice to all regional languages.

The representatives from various groups, belonging to several NGOs as well as DU's colleges, shared Manjit's concerns and claimed that these languages were likely to lose their relevance in the future.

"Suppose a few students in an off-campus college consider Punjabi or Urdu as an option for Discipline II. Their request will be turned down since there are only a few teachers available to teach the language. This way the languages will be lost," a Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee official said.

Urdu language representatives, also present at the occasion, pledged their support to join the fight in order to save their language.

An 11 member committee has been formed under the chief advisor of DSGMC, Kulmohan Singh, to take the matter up for further discussion.